


Slave Names

by Transposable_Element



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Book: The Horse and his Boy, Calormen, Escape, Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Hwin's years in captivity she is called by many names but never forgets her true name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slave Names

**Author's Note:**

> Advisory: fear/threat of rape; but no rape.
> 
> ***
> 
> "I dismounted from Hwin my mare and took out the dagger. Then I parted my clothes where I thought the readiest way lay to my heart and I prayed to all the gods that as soon as I was dead I might find myself with my brother. After that I shut my eyes and my teeth and prepared to drive the dagger into my heart. But before I had done so, this mare spoke with the voice of one of the daughters of men and said, 'O my mistress, do not by any means destroy yourself, for if you live you may yet have good fortune but all the dead are dead alike.' "
> 
> "I didn't say it half so well as that," muttered the mare.
> 
> \-- _A Horse and His Boy_

“Goldie, if you'll just talk I promise you’ll be treated like a queen,” the slaver wheedled. Every time he called her Goldie, Hwin whinnied her own name, which she knew sounded like any other whinny to him. Saying it helped her to bear what was happening to her: it helped her believe that no matter what anybody did to her, she was still her own Horse, and that the great Lion would always protect her.

Hwin had taken to heart the warning that had gone around to all the Talking Beasts aboard ship, spread by a Mouse who lived in the hold: a warning never to speak. As Talking Beasts they would have no hope of escape. As dumb beasts, hiding their intelligence and will, they might one day find the means to flee to freedom.

The slaver who had abducted Hwin was sure that she was a Talking Horse, but that didn’t mean he could force her to prove it. Hwin did her best to act as though she didn’t understand the man. He tried startling her; she whinnied instead of responding in words. He tried insulting her, her family, and the Kings and Queens of Narnia; she seethed and held her tongue, pretending indifference. He tried swearing; she hid her distaste for his coarseness. He tried starving her for a couple of days, telling her that she had only to ask and she would be fed; she maintained her silence. Eventually he gave in and fed her because he didn’t want to spoil her looks for market. For the same reason, he never followed through on his threats to whip her. Finally he gave up trying to make her talk.

The slaver knew that as long as she remained mute, telling the buyer that she could speak would only make him look like a fool, but she was still a good horse who ought to fetch a good price. So at the market in the Green Isles he pointed out to prospective buyers all the excellent qualities of this beautiful filly. “She’s a very clever horse, should be easy to train,” he said. “Gentle as a kitten. And look at that coat—the color of a newly minted crescent! She'll make a fine saddle horse for a fine lady."

A horse dealer bought her and took her down the coast of Calormen to his stables in Tanadar Province, where he had a palomino mare whose coat was an almost perfect match for Hwin’s. He called her Cath, which puzzled her until she learned that a cath was a gold coin worth 5 crescents. In Tanadar a tarkaan’s stable-master bought her and Crescent, the dumb palomino mare. He was glad to have found such a beautifully matched team to pull the tarkaan's chariot, and Hwin was glad as well, because as long as the stable-master wished to keep the team together he would not try to breed her. She did her best to give no trouble, acting as intelligently as she could without causing suspicion. She guided Crescent, helping her to learn quickly and well so that they would be kept together. When they had been trained and were paraded before the tarkaan and his family everybody agreed that they looked very fine indeed, two golden mares with white manes and tails, pulling the elegant gilded chariot.

For four years she drew the tarkaan's chariot. She was well taken care of, and the work wasn’t difficult. She knew she had been lucky so far. Her greatest fear, that her master would try to breed her, seemed remote. But she was bored and lonely, and she began to fear that she would never find a chance to escape. Sometimes when she couldn't stand to be mute any longer she talked to herself, but only at night when no humans were nearby to hear her. She prayed to the Lion every day. And every morning when she woke she whinnied her own name, her real name, so as not to forget it, not to forget herself.

 

Then one day her partner, who had been poorly shod, went lame. No longer useful as a chariot horse, Crescent was now destined to become a broodmare. Hwin worried that the same was in store for her, and she silently prayed to Aslan for protection. Not long after, a tarkaan came into her stall and examined her carefully, looking at her teeth and feeling her limbs in that insulting way they had. She tried to bear it stoically. “Oh, you are a beauty,” he said, stroking her flank, and she twitched nervously; she couldn’t help it, even after all this time. Why did humans insist on touching her so familiarly, even on so small an acquaintance? The next day he took her away with him, tethered behind his own saddle horse.

Her new master, Kidrash Tarkaan, brought her to his estate in Calavar Province. His stables were well-run and comfortable. She suspected that like her previous master he treated the horses on his estate better in many ways than his human slaves. As before she pulled a chariot, although her master didn’t use his often, preferring to ride his saddle horse. She was taken out regularly for exercise, but she was bored, and she missed Crescent, who had been surprisingly good company despite being dumb. And as before, every morning when she woke she whinnied her own name, reminding herself where she had come from and where, with the Lion's favor, she would one day return.

The first time she went into season after coming to Calavar she was able to hide her condition, but the second time it happened she was feeling unusually excited and couldn’t manage to conceal it. One day the stable hands put her in a new stall that had a partition about the height of her shoulder. On the other side of the partition was a stallion, and of course he began to pay court to her. Hwin felt ashamed. Her body was betraying her. She was in season, and the stallion, though dumb and witless, was quite a fine fellow with a very nice physique and good manners. He nickered and sniffed her, nuzzling and nudging her gently over the partition. She did her best not to respond, but she couldn't help raising her tail a couple of times.

Hwin spend a restless night, praying to the Lion to spare her. But the next day a man came to lead her into the breeding shed. She trembled, nearly paralyzed with fear. Then they brought in the stallion. Hwin was glad he wasn't the same one who had been in the stall next to her, whom she had come to like, because she now resolved to hurt him if she had to.

Hwin had been so docile up to that point that all the stablemen were startled when she kicked at the stallion as soon as he came near her. She pranced and shied, snorting and blowing. She shook off the handlers. She knew the poor dumb stallion wasn’t to blame, but she was careful to direct her kicks at him and not at the handlers because she didn’t want to get a reputation as a dangerous animal. It quickly became clear that she wasn’t going to cooperate.

One of the hands led her back to her stall, rubbed her down, and fed her a hot mash. "That fellow not good enough for you, no?" said the man genially. "Well, we'll see if we can find you one you'll like better." Hwin's heart sank. Now she didn't just pray to Aslan: she begged. She wondered, too, if she ought to speak to the men, explain that she was a person, not a dumb beast. But she feared that might just make them more determined to breed her, even if she told them truthfully that the mating would be sterile.

They kept her in the stall next to the handsome stallion for another day, and the whole time Hwin fought her physical instincts, desperate to maintain control. When they took her to the breeding shed to present her with yet another stallion, Kidrash Tarkaan was there himself to oversee it. Again she balked and whinnied and squealed, and finally she kicked at the stallion as she had before. It was not long before they concluded they would not be able to calm her.

Fortunately for Hwin, Kidrash and his hands didn’t try to force a mare to mate if she refused the stallion—not because they cared about the mare’s feelings, but because somebody might get injured, and because it might make the stallion difficult to control in future. They put her back in her own stall, which she hoped meant that they had given up for now. Her heat was nearly over, and the breeding season was ending. With any luck she wouldn't go into season again for months. Next time, she would just have to hide it better. After another day or two her heat ended. She silently praised Aslan.

 

Hwin resumed her docile behavior, and not long afterward her master began training her as a saddle horse. He trained her himself, instead of leaving the job to the stablemen. She didn’t understand why until the day he led her out into the stable yard, where a young girl was waiting for them. The girl was dressed in a fine but simple tunic and riding trousers. She was small and slender, but she looked strong. Hwin realized from the way Kidrash treated her that she must be his daughter. Hwin had not seen the girl before, but she had heard of her: the stable hands agreed that the young tarkheena was a keen rider and a skilled one for her age.

“O my daughter, this lady is my gift to you,” said Kidrash. “May you forever remember this as the happiest of birthdays.”

The girl, Aravis, approached Hwin respectfully. Hwin accepted a slice of apple from her and allowed Aravis to stroke her mane. "Oh, she is beautiful!" said the girl, turning to her father. Kidrash cupped his daughter's cheek in his hand.

Aravis took her father’s hand in both of hers and kissed it. “O my father, my gratitude is…is as deep as the sea, my joy as boundless! Such a beautiful lady!” She seemed composed, but Hwin could feel her excitement.

“This mare is a precious gem—a handsome and intelligent animal,” said her father. “I trust you will do well together.”

“Oh, I hope so. What shall I call her, Father? May I give her a new name?”

“She is yours, so you may call her whatever you wish,” he said. Hwin suppressed an impulse to toss her head. What new name was now to be wished upon her? Hwin softly whinnied her real name, the name that her parents had given her, the name that was hers forever, no matter what her masters called her.

“I will call her Dagger,” said Aravis.

Hwin sighed inwardly. Well, it was probably about the best one could expect from a young girl. It could have been worse. It could have been Buttercup. It could have been Rainbow.

But Kidrash laughed fondly. “If you will,” he said. “Now we will go for a short ride, and then we will take her into the shed, so that I may show you how to groom her properly.”

“Must I do that myself? Cannot the hands do it?” asked the girl haughtily.

“Yes, you must do it yourself,” said Kidrash firmly. “I give this lady to you; you are now responsible for her well-being. You must see to it that she is properly stabled; I will not check on her for you. At the very least you must learn how to care for her properly so that you may be certain the hands are doing their duty by her. But I advise you to have them attend to her only when you are ill or away from home. A horse is not simply a pet, Aravis. This…this Dagger will be your servant, but she will also be your companion. If you were a boy and were to go to war one day, you would depend upon her for your very life. Indeed, you will trust her with your life every time you mount upon her back. If you care for her, she will care for you. If you wish to be safe, to be in control, you must give her your best. You must never neglect her. You must teach her to know you, to trust you, that you may know her and trust her.”

 

At first Hwin didn’t think much of Aravis one way or the other. She was a good rider, with fine balance and a light touch on the rein, and she didn’t weigh very much. Being the girl’s saddle horse was easy duty, and as long as the girl wanted to ride her every day, Hwin would not have to worry about being bred. Things could have been much, much worse, and Hwin thanked the Lion for His protection. But she also had to admit that there was truth in what Kidrash had said about the relationship between horse and rider. There was something calming about being brushed and combed and tended to. When the same person did it every day there was something intimate about it as well. And Aravis didn’t hurry through it like the stable hands, but took her time and seemed to enjoy it. She stroked Hwin’s mane and told her she was the most beautiful horse in the world. Aravis was Hwin's only rider and she was the girl's only mount. She began to know the girl: her idiosyncrasies, her moods. Despite herself, Hwin began to feel affection for Aravis.

Half a year after he gave Hwin to Aravis, Kidrash Tarkaan, who was a widower, remarried. Aravis was not a very expressive child, but Hwin could tell she was unhappy. She began to spend more time out of the house. It seemed that any time she had more than an hour free she would come to the stables and take Hwin out for a ride. Sometimes she talked to Hwin, telling her all her woes. This didn’t surprise Hwin, who had found that many humans spoke aloud to horses, even though they didn’t expect them to understand, let alone respond. It was a curious thing, but she was used to it. Aravis told Hwin that she was lonely and bored. She hated her stepmother, who was cruel to her in devious and subtle ways. She missed her elder brother, who was away out west, fighting in the wars. She loved her father, but she was angry at him for marrying such a terrible wife and not doing enough to protect his daughter from her cruelty. Her younger brother was too little to be a good playmate. She had friends, but none of them lived nearby, so she saw them only when they visited here or she went to visit them.

“You’re the best friend I have, Dagger,” Aravis said one day. Hwin felt a rush of sympathy even as the thought arose in her mind, as it always did: _that is not my name_.

More than a year passed without much change. Hwin still dreamed of freedom, but every day that hope seemed more remote. She could not escape alone, and who would help her? Nobody. When she awoke each day she whinnied her own name, and in that moment she was a free Mare. But it was an illusion. Throughout the rest of the day she was a slave, with a slave’s anxieties, a slave’s humiliations, a slave's boredom, and a slave’s grief.

In the autumn Aravis’s elder brother, Idrith, came home for a few days to celebrate the Feast of Agnath, and one day Aravis and Idrith went out for a long ride, racing across the fields and staying out all afternoon. They stopped for a rest, and of course Hwin couldn’t help eavesdropping. Aravis told her brother that their stepmother was beginning to talk about finding a husband for her. “I will be 12 soon, and she says 12 years old is not too young. Father has always promised me that he wouldn’t contract me before I was 14, but that thrice-cursed woman seems determined! She wants me out of the house,” said Aravis.

“Do not fear, sister,” said Idrith. “I will speak to our father. He is a fair man, and I cannot believe he would make a contract for you when you are still so young.”

This conversation shocked Hwin. It had not occurred to her that Aravis might be mated against her will and contrary to her desire. Aravis was free and highborn, not a slave—or was she? Did her father own her? Hwin couldn’t understand it. And surely Aravis was still too young for marriage. A few months earlier Hwin had ridden with Aravis to the woods, where a friend was performing rites to release herself from the service of Zardeenah, the Lady of the Night and of Maidens, so that she could wed (there was a large group of girls, and from what Hwin could see the rite seemed to consist mainly of dancing and giggling). Aravis was the youngest girl there, and from the conversation Hwin understood that unlike the other maidens Aravis had not yet experienced a thing called “monthlies." The girls all seemed to believe that this had to happen before a maiden could be married. Hwin supposed it was something like a Mare going into season. She had certainly never seen Aravis behaving as though she wished to be mounted.

Hwin didn’t know whether Idrith ever spoke to Kidrash as he had promised. After the end of the festival the young tarkaan went back to the wars, and just before midwinter the family received the news that he had been killed. Hwin learned about this from the gossiping of the stable hands, but she would have known anyway that somebody in the family had died, because from the stable yard she could see the white mourning flags raised over the house and smell the offerings burning on the altar in the courtyard. Hwin said a prayer for the deliverance of the young man's soul; he had worshipped other gods, but he was a good boy and she asked the Lion to show him mercy. 

One day soon after her brother died, Aravis came into Hwin’s stall, put her arms around Hwin’s neck, and leaned up against her, burying her face in Hwin’s mane. It was the first time Hwin had ever known her to weep. Aravis wasn't allowed to ride for pleasure until the first mourning period was over, but she came to see Hwin every day. Hwin comforted her as best she could.

After 33 days all of the white mourning flags were lowered except for one that would stay up for a full year. The household returned to its normal routines. Aravis was allowed to ride again. But nothing was quite the same. Kidrash seemed numb with grief, and Hwin often heard the little boy, Rishti, having fits of temper.

 

There came a day in spring when Aravis strode into the stable with her mouth set in a grim line. She had not been out to ride at all the day before, which was unusual, and Hwin saw that her eyes were red. Aravis saddled her, her movements brusque and graceless. She flung herself onto Hwin's back and they rode out. Hwin could feel the girl's tension and wondered what was the matter.

They rode to a wooded area that bordered the horse pasture. It was not like the lush woods of Hwin's dimly remembered homeland, but it was lovely in its own way. The new spring green was showing in the dark foliage of the live oaks, and the laurels were beginning to put out yellow buds. They stopped in a clearing and Aravis dismounted. "I know you won't like this. I'm sorry," she whispered, stroking Hwin's mane. She didn’t tie Hwin up, but kissed her nose and let her loose to graze.

Hwin started to crop some grass, watching Aravis out of the corner of her eye. Something was very wrong. Aravis’s breathing was labored and rough; she was half sobbing as she dug clumsily in her pack, searching for something. She found whatever it was and knelt in the center of the clearing. Hwin raised her head, worried. Aravis held a dagger in her right hand. She fumbled at the neck of her tunic, drawing it down, and held the point of the dagger against the left side of her breast.

“O Zardeenah, Lady of the Night, I beg thee to accept this maiden sacrifice, of one who would die rather than be parted from thee,” she said in a trembling voice. “And I beseech thee, and the great God Azaroth, and the Goddess Ishtelah, to reunite me with my mother, Veledis, and my brother Idrith once I have passed beyond—”

Hwin felt as though the words were being torn from her throat: “Aravis, stop it! What are you _doing_? You can’t _kill_ yourself! By the Lion, whatever troubles you, you mustn't just give _up_!”

Aravis looked up, startled, and Hwin stood still, shocked at herself. Had she really spoken? Aravis closed her eyes tight, opened them again, and then shook her head, muttering to herself. She raised the dagger again to her breast, clenching her teeth.

Hwin knew she must act. She crossed quickly to Aravis and placed her head against the girl’s breast. “Aravis, no,” she said. “Please, tell me what is wrong. I will help you, if I can. Do not despair, sweetheart. There is no sin greater than despair! There is _always_ hope—you must believe me. Throughout my years of slavery, I have never lost hope, never. The Lion will guide me, and your gods will guide you, to a better choice than this!”

Hwin saw the dagger drop out of Aravis’s hand and fall to the grass.

“What….How….Are you speaking? Truly? I thought…I was imagining it. How…How can you?” Aravis stammered.

“Where I come from, many beasts can speak. But tell me, what is so terrible that you must kill yourself?” 

“My father has promised me to a hideous old man!” Aravis wailed.

 

They spoke together. Aravis explained her predicament, and Hwin told Aravis about the North, and they made a plan to escape. As they were preparing to return to the estate, Aravis dried her eyes and embraced Hwin, and said “Oh, Dagger—“

“No,” said Hwin sharply, and Aravis drew back, surprised. “You must promise not to call me by that name ever again,” Hwin said.

“Oh,” said Aravis, seeming chagrined. “Do you not like it?”

“No,” said Hwin, “I don't. And even if I did, it is not my name. It is a slave name.”

Aravis was quiet for a moment. Hwin thought the girl, who was undeniably arrogant and unused to being crossed, was suppressing a retort. “Of course, if you wish me not to call you by that name I will not," she said stiffly. "But what must I call you instead?”

The Mare whinnied her name loudly, clearly, proudly. But of course Aravis couldn’t say it! They settled on Hwin as an acceptable nickname.

Aravis was as good as her word. Never again did she call Hwin by her slave name. From that day forward, Hwin did her best to forget that she had ever been called Goldie, or Cath, or Dagger, or anything but her true name, the name of a free Horse.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to [A Horse and His Conscience](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2353565), but they aren't directly related.
> 
> For many slaves sexual exploitation was and is a constant threat, and it seems to me that for Talking Beasts it would be especially dreaded, because they are in danger of a particularly horrifying form of rape, bestiality. Also, in another of my stories Hwin meets Kidrash in Narnia many years after her escape and remembers how he tried to breed her, so I felt I had to include the scene. Some horse breeders force unwilling mares to mate, but many don't, generally for the same reasons mentioned in the story: because it teaches stallions "bad manners" and because it's dangerous for both the horses and the handlers—people do get killed breeding horses. In my version of the character Kidrash is definitely the kind of man who would have well-run stables with properly-trained stallions and hands who knew their business. 
> 
> The seed of this story was something I noticed when I was checking a detail in _A Horse and His Boy_ while working on a different story: when Aravis tells the story of their escape, she refers to her mare as "Hwin," the same name the Horse uses throughout the book. It's clearly a short form of her unpronounceable (to humans) real name, in the same way that "Bree" is a short form of his real name. But of course Aravis would not have called her horse Hwin until she found out that she could speak. Aravis is a careful and accomplished story-teller, so one would think she would call Hwin by her slave name until the point in the story when she finds out that Hwin can speak. Although I'm sure C.S. Lewis's didn't intend this discrepancy to be significant I decided it required an explanation. Hwin always strikes me as the kind of person who appears to be gentle and conciliatory, but underneath is strong and determined and absolutely certain of what is right. And very devout, which is why there are so many references to prayer and faith in this story.


End file.
